(14) Living off the land again

It must have been winter 1944 and I found myself running for my life through a forest yet again. Not alone this time, but with two other Poles, Eddie and Josef. We stopped to rest and Eddie began to cry. He'd left his wife and children in Poland, he'd no idea whether they were alive or dead. I told him not to think about things like that as he's no idea what had happened. He needed to concentrate on saving himself first. I told him that despite our predicament, there were still plenty of villages, and working in some of these villages were Poles who would help us. Some of them had contact with the Polish Underground in Warsaw.

We found another unoccupied bunker for shelter and stayed holed up in there for about 3 weeks or so. It was so cold, even my friends, the rats, had deserted it, but we had to get protection from the winter.

I was coughing up blood, a legacy of my having lost one lung to TB at Gustaf Stassen's Farm.

One morning it was quiet; no artillery fire from either the Allies or the Germans. The Germans had obviously retreated overnight, and things were peaceful. From the entrance to our bunker we saw three men, two German soldiers and a young officer, each carrying a bundle. We watched them abandon their weapons, throw their uniforms away, and dress in civilian clothes. Clearly they were deserters from the retreating German army. Eddie and Stephan began to pray, but I have always been a fatalist, and said to myself the same thing that kept me going for so long. Two things can happen, if God is in heaven, he might see us and help us, if not we are going to die.

I decided to leave the bunker and sneak down to get the revolver and two rifles, to arm my comrades and myself. From then on, we were heroes! We had rifles, ammunition, so could defend ourselves if necessary.

I believe it was a Sunday Morning when I was walking through the forest and I heard a whistle. Old Eddy, he said

"They've found us, they've got us"!

I said,

"For Christ's sake shut your mouth, you've no idea who or what that is."

I thought to myself,

"Well I'm the single one, I've no family it doesn't matter if I live or die, I just have to find out who this is."

I went from tree to tree, keeping cover, following the sound of the whistle. It turned to be Hilda, the daughter of the farmer where Josef worked, who had heard that he was on the run and had come looking for him with some soup to eat. For several days, Hilda brought soup and tea to us on her way in to town. She left it in the forest and on her return picked up the empty can and took it home.

In the days to come despite the fact that I was coughing blood, and most of us were half-dead from cold and hunger, my little band of comrades looked to me for leadership, they treated me like the officer. I decided our best chance of survival and avoiding capture was to go from farm to farm, hiding out and getting as much help as we could get from the foreign labourers we met there.

The workers at the farms were not all patriotic Poles, we met up with two more Germans from the Polish areas, ("half German, half Pole") they were supporters of the German cause. They operated the anti-aircraft searchlight close to the farm. When they met me they they threatened that after the war was over they would find me and string me up by the bollocks

(the actual word Czes used was "bolongers" :-)

I knew though, that they had picked the wrong side, because, all through this time I was conscious of the close proximity of the Americans, both from the bombing and from the rumours spreading through the locals. All us Poles were gaining in confidence that they would eventually find us, and we could join up with them. On the same farm, hiding in the cellar, was a German deserter, I'd seen his uniform.

The farmer's daughter had to bring the tea and sandwiches to my group and me as we worked in the meadow. She hated me like a dog hates a cat, so after about 2 weeks I decided we should move on to another farm for our own safety.